Chapter Four
Doc
The truck’s headlights cut through the darkness, illuminating the empty highway stretching before us.
I kept my speed steady, hands at ten and two on the wheel, gaze constantly checking the rearview mirror for headlights that might linger too long behind us.
Nova sat silent in the passenger seat. The soft glow from the dashboard cast shadows across her face.
She stayed quiet after we left the apartment, every mile dragging us closer to the spot where her parents had died -- where someone had stolen their lives on purpose.
“Turn left at the next crossroad.” Her voice came out barely above a whisper. “Then about two miles down, there’s a bend in the road.”
I nodded, flicking my gaze to the side mirror again. The road behind us remained empty, but the prickling sensation between my shoulder blades -- the one that had kept me alive in combat zones -- hadn’t subsided.
“You’ve been here before?” I asked, making the turn onto a narrower, less maintained road.
“Once, for the roadside memorial.” Her fingers tightened around the notebook. “I couldn’t… I couldn’t come back after that.”
I understood without her having to explain. Some places hold too much pain to revisit. As a combat medic, I’d avoided certain streets overseas where I’d lost men, where I’d kneeled in sand turned to mud with their blood. A few weeks wasn’t nearly enough time to dull that kind of memory.
The road curved ahead, revealing a stretch of highway bordered by a steep drop-off on one side.
A simple guardrail -- replaced since the accident, judging by the newer metal gleaming in my headlights -- was all that separated the asphalt from the ravine below.
I slowed the truck, pulling onto the narrow shoulder about fifty yards past the curve.
“Is this it?” I asked, though I already knew the answer from the way Nova’s breathing had quickened.
She nodded, her knuckles white where they gripped her mother’s notebook. “Yes.”
I killed the engine but left the keys in the ignition. Force of habit from years of needing to leave in a hurry. The silence that followed seemed to press against my eardrums, broken only by the occasional rustle of leaves in the night breeze and the soft ticking of the cooling engine.
“Wait,” I said as Nova reached for her door handle. “Let me check the area first.”
I stepped out of the truck, scanning our surroundings with practiced eyes.
The road stretched empty in both directions, with the nearest streetlight at least a quarter mile away.
The ravine dropped steeply to our right, while dense woods crowded the opposite side of the highway.
A small roadside memorial -- flowers long since dried, a simple wooden cross -- marked the spot where Mary-Jane and Daniel Treemont’s car had gone through the guardrail.
The place was quiet. Too quiet, maybe. No passing cars, no distant sounds of civilization.
Just the wind through the trees and the occasional call of a night bird.
Perfect place for an “accident.” Isolated enough that there wouldn’t be witnesses.
The ravine dropped deep enough to badly damage a car in the fall and obscure any evidence of foul play.
I circled back to the passenger side, opening Nova’s door. “All clear for now, but let’s be quick.”
She stepped out, her small frame tense as she surveyed the scene of her parents’ deaths.
I watched her swallow hard, steel herself with a deep breath before approaching the roadside memorial.
My chest tightened at the grief etched in her features, the stubborn set of her jaw as she fought to maintain composure.
“The police report said they lost control coming around the bend.” Her voice was steadier than I’d expected. “The car hit the guardrail here” -- she pointed to where the newer section began -- “and went over the edge. It rolled twice before hitting the bottom.”
I nodded, moving to where she indicated. “The impact point would match the damage we saw in the photos. If another vehicle struck them from behind at the right angle, they would have had almost no chance to correct before hitting the rail.”
Nova kneeled by the side of the road, pulling a small flashlight from her bag. She swept the light across the asphalt, but weeks of weather and traffic had erased any traces that might have remained. It now looked like any other stretch of road.
I kept my position between her and the road, scanning in both directions every few seconds. We stood exposed. No cover. Every second put us at risk. We had to find what we came for and get out -- fast.
Nova moved methodically along the guardrail, her flashlight beam playing across the metal and down into the ravine below. She was thorough, I had to give her that. Methodical in a way that reminded me of her mother’s organized research notes.
“Doc,” she called suddenly, her voice tight with excitement. “Look at this.”
I moved to her side, keeping my body angled to maintain visibility of the road in both directions. She was pointing to something wedged in the dirt at the base of the guardrail post -- a small piece of metal, no bigger than a quarter, partially buried in the soil.
Nova carefully dug around it with her fingers, working it free from the packed earth. When she held it up to the flashlight, I could see it was a fragment of something larger -- a curved piece of metal with traces of dark blue paint.
“It matches their car.” She pulled a photo out of her bag. In the image, a close-up shot of her parents’ vehicle showed damage to the rear quarter panel. “This is the same color as their car, so I thought…”
I took the fragment, inspecting it. While the color did seem to be the same, there was no way of knowing if it actually came from their vehicle. Either way, the investigators clearly missed this. To my knowledge, there hadn’t been another accident here since then.
“We need to bag this.” I reached into my pocket, where I kept a few plastic specimen bags.
The distant sound of an engine broke the silence, headlights appearing around the bend behind us. I tensed immediately, my hand moving instinctively toward the weapon under my cut.
“Get behind me.” I pocketed the metal fragment and stepped in front of Nova. “Back toward the truck, but don’t run.”
The approaching vehicle slowed as it neared us -- a pickup truck, dark-colored, its headlights illuminating us clearly against the guardrail. A second set of headlights appeared behind it -- a sedan with tinted windows, moving at the same deliberate pace.
“Doc,” Nova whispered, her voice tight with fear. I felt her small hand grip the back of my cut.
“Stay calm,” I murmured. “When I move, you move with me.”
The vehicles pulled to a stop about twenty yards away, forming a V that partially blocked the road.
Three men emerged -- two from the truck, one from the sedan.
Even in the dim light, I could make out the tats on two of them -- Blood Pagans, a gang with territory north of ours.
The third man wore plain clothes, but as he stepped into the spill of the headlights, I caught the glint of a badge partially visible beneath his jacket.
“Well, well,” called one of the Blood Pagans, a tall man with a shaved head. “Looks like we got a Dixie Reaper where he doesn’t belong.”
I kept my stance casual but ready, angling my body to shield Nova as much as possible while maintaining sight of all three men. My hand hovered near my weapon, but I didn’t draw it. Not yet.
“Just paying respects.” I nodded toward the memorial. “No trouble here.”
The man with the badge stepped forward, his hand resting too casually near his hip. “Funny place to pay respects at one in the morning.” His voice carried the lazy drawl of someone who enjoyed the power his position gave him.
Behind me, I felt Nova tense, ready to speak. I pressed my hand back slightly, a silent warning to stay quiet. These men knew exactly who we were and why we were here. This was no random encounter.
“We’re just leaving.” I kept my voice neutral while my mind calculated distances, angles, and the fastest way to get Nova safely to the truck if things went south.
“That right?” The second Blood Pagan, a shorter man with a beard and dead eyes, stared me down. “Seemed to me like you were looking for something.” He gestured toward the ground where Nova had been digging. “Finding anything interesting in the dirt, sweetheart?”
I took a measured step back, guiding Nova with me. Twenty feet to the truck. Keys in the ignition. We just needed to make it there without turning this confrontation into something bloodier.
“Nothing that concerns you.” I maintained eye contact with the apparent leader -- the deputy. His smirk told me everything I needed to know about his involvement in what had happened here.
We were in serious trouble.
The three men spread out as they approached, a tactical move I recognized from both my military days and my time with the club.
They wanted to cut off our escape route, the deputy taking center while the Blood Pagans flanked him on either side.
Behind me, Nova’s breathing had quickened, but she held steady, her slight frame pressed against my back.
I kept my posture loose, but every muscle coiled tight, ready to snap the second things shifted from bad to lethal.
“You know,” the deputy said, stopping about ten feet away, “it’s interesting how history repeats itself. People just don’t learn.” He gestured toward the ravine. “Nosy reporters digging where they shouldn’t, ending up in unfortunate accidents.”
I felt Nova flinch against my back, but her voice came out surprisingly steady. “My mother was a journalist, not just a reporter. And what happened to her wasn’t an accident.”
Shit. I’d hoped she’d stay quiet, but I should have known better. Nova Treemont had her mother’s spine.